


The Heart Stutters

by DisguisedasInnocent



Series: I Swear Fealty To You [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Long Kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 21:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6924673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisguisedasInnocent/pseuds/DisguisedasInnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke Griffin has felt pain and suffering many times in her short lifetime. However, at the hands of Leksa kom Trikru, she has also felt love. </p><p>
  <em>This time Clarke's heart did not stutter from pain, but from hope. Hope that clogged her throat. Hope that burned her mouth. Hope that seared her brain.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart Stutters

Chestnut brown.

Clarke's tired eyes caught the flutter of chestnut brown strands of hair caught in the wind, and her heart stopped in her chest. It stopped, and it ached, and it pulsed with pain and fury.

It had stuttered on three previous occasions.

First; bone deep grief clogged her lungs as soon as she stumbled out onto the walkway and her eyes landed on her father's figure. He stood, tall and proud, in front of the airlocks’ doors. Clarke wanted to scream—he wasn't a traitor—he did not deserve his fate. Instead, she stepped toward her father, and into his arms. She didn't remember any of the words that passed his lips, or the feeling of the gentle kiss he pressed to the crown of her head. But, she did remember the scent of his skin in his shirt, and the warmth of his body against her chest.

She watched—trembling—as he spiralled out into the empty abyss, his eyes wide and her mouth open, but sightless and soundless.

Second; despair thundered through her veins and licked at her skin by flames as her hand fell away from the lever. Pain and remorse itched in the corners of Clarke's eyes as she forced herself to watch the camera feeds, and chronicle the deaths one by one. She etched their memory into her mind—they deserve that much at least—to preserve their essence on her own soul. Clarke caught their faces—the smooth lines of their cheekbones and the soft rises of their lips—to be scraped into rock-faces and onto plain canvas as a reminder. If Death has no meaning, then Life has no worth. They, with their blackened souls and cherub faces, would become her meaning, and her people, with their heavy eyes and hearts filled with no understanding, would perhaps become her worth. 

She pulled her people out of The Mountain—one by one—and escorted them to safety. Then, Clarke turned away, because she would bear the sacrifice but they had no place in her victory. She would carry that alone. They would not have to shoulder that pain.

Third; loss. It was spine chilling, heart wrenching, and gut twisting. It was whole and complete. It was a beast that ripped through every single one of her nerve endings and tore her heart from her chest. It was the poison air of the Mountain, caught in her lungs, eating away at her flesh until she became nothing more than a husk. Loss pounded through Clarke's veins as she reached out to brush the lids of _Lexa's eyes_ closed. Her lungs ached—begged—to scream but her throat refused to open.

She broke—completely—with her hands stained by black blood.

This time Clarke's heart did not stutter from pain, but from hope. Hope that clogged her throat. Hope that burned her mouth. Hope that seared her brain. 

Hope.

Clarke would not be able to say what words were passed between their mouths afterwards. She would not be able to express who moved first; whether it was her leaning in, or Lexa tugging her forward. She would not remember.

But, she did remember the kiss.

It started with her hand arched around the back of Lexa's neck, her fingers tangling in the fine hairs at the woman's nape, and the soft press of two mouths that ached to be together. It flowed from one pair of lips—bitten pink and sore by worry—to another pair—etched dark purple by the blood that ran underneath. The two mouths danced seamlessly as if following a prearranged choreography designed solely for them. 

The kiss started as a simple press of mouths, and then became more. It became the urgent thrust of a tongue into the depths of a hot mouth—Clarke thought it was Lexa's tongue in her mouth, but she didn't know for sure—and the scrape of teeth over the sensitive muscle. Tongues danced, pressing forward and flowing backward, as the pattern demanded. Lexa's hands cradled Clarke's face gently, thumbs smoothing over her cheekbones while fingertips curled around spun gold strands, and drew her inward pressing harder and swallowing the air from Clarke's lungs whilst offering her own in exchange. 

Neither Clarke or Lexa broke the kiss. Instead, it became a series of kisses, some pressed desperately to swollen lips and some dropped almost thoughtlessly onto flushed cheeks. 

The kiss consumed them.

Clarke's heart stuttered a fourth time when she had to watch as Lexa leapt forward into battle, twin swords primed, but this time it did not regain its foothold in its rhythm. 

Instead, it let itself fade into silence, and when the simulation fell Clarke's body slumped over in the Commander's chair, black blood oozing from her nose under the influence of nothing more than gravity.

Em gonplei ste odon.


End file.
